DrumBeat: August 1, 2006
Posted by threadbot on August 1, 2006 - 9:30am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tropical Storm Chris heads toward the Gulf:
Scorching temperatures send natural gas futures to three-month high
Drivers try another gas to save gasoline. People are filling their tires with nitrogen to improve gas mileage. I guess buying a smaller car is out of the question...
From Military.com: Withdraw or Stand Firm?
So how do we get of Iraq with our dignity and not have a costly energy crisis?In the short term, we can't. In the long term, America is the Saudi Arabia of coal. Technologies are already proven for making coal into synthetic gas and liquid fuel, and when crude oil runs low enough that it becomes unduly expensive, we'll put this technology in the field and become a net exporter of fuel to the world. That's two decades in the future, however.
In the meantime, we'd better get to work drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Slope of Alaska and ramping up production, with apologies to the environmentalists.
Or we can continue to get shot at in the streets of Baghdad.
Bangladesh: Power outages protested
People formed a two-kilometre human chain in Gaibandha protesting frequent power outages.
U.K.: Single households 'waste energy'
Efforts to get households to reduce energy use are being hampered by the appliance and gadget-packed homes of single men, research suggests.The suggested solution? An "occupancy tax" to discourage people from living alone.
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,107939,00.htm
Withdraw or Stand Firm?
Michael DiMercurio | August 01, 2006
"So how do we get of Iraq with our dignity and not have a costly energy crisis?"
(tongue firmly in cheek...)
EXACTLY RIGHT. In a population in overshoot, many individual organisms must die. And humans on Earth are most certainly in overshoot. How do we decide who dies? Obviously, there's no easy answer if you want to be "humane." But there is one easy answer: NOT ME!
(and I'm dead serious, no tongue in cheek here. they can and will die, I'll hang on as long as I can.)
"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored."
~ Richard Dawkins: River Out of Eden, page131-132.
==AC
Being aware of peak oil has really made me face up to my own mortality, indeed to the mortality of everything around us. It makes it hard for me to keep ignoring the deeper questions about existence and its meaning.
"This too, shall pass".
Yet another meaningless emotional response!
"partners in crime" : this is the evolutionary selected cheater detection mechanism at work.
Assuming an entirely egalitarian worldwide society (same income for EVERYONE) the problems of Peak Oil would be JUST AS BAD!
Cut the bullshit!
It is the GROWTH and total population which matters.
Don't apologize to me, apologize to your children. The war against nature is in reality a war of humans against humans: today's generation against all future generations. Our generation is winning big, but only by destroying humanity's life-support systems--clean water, clean air, and food production.
In the big scheme, the Iraq war is insignificant. The question is: "WHERE ARE THE REAL BATTLES?" The actual frontlines are right here in America, all around you: suburban sprawl, petrochemical factories, nuclear + coal power plants, industrial agriculture, and most importantly, the logging/drilling/mining of the few remaining intact ecosystems. Our victory is nearly complete. Soon it will be total, and all future humans can "thrive" in this toxic wasteland we have created for their enjoyment.
Soon our victory will be complete. We will have killed off every other species on earth except the rats and vermin that co-exist with us humans. Soon we will have a brown cursted earth all to ourselves. Then we can celebrate.
I guess....
yep, not much to celebrate, is there?
I was brushing up on my evolution last night. It's fascinating how the in the last stages of human evolution, the successor species exterminated its still-living ancestor species.
Also, I love how we are the most successful predator of all time. WE CAN EAT ROCKS!!! Literally! And like all extremely successful species, we will be destroyed by our own success. It is the natural order of things: an organism always modifies its environment just by existing, and its excretions are autotoxic. We can dominate, but not control.
Industrial civilization is as doomed as yeast in a wine cask.
The burning question on my mind is this:
Do humans have the power to destroy ALL life on earth?
Will nuclear armageddon do it? Persistent bio-accumulating organic toxins? Radical climate changes? I am still undecided, but I'm studying up on molecular biology. I'm sure we'll manage to cause another mass extinction--but I don't think we can actually destroy all life. Prokaryotes are some damn hardy organisms.
Yes, but probably with great difficulty as well as great(seemingly innate) stupidity.
Life is pretty resilient and could always re-evolve, though wasting a few million or hundreds of millions of years may be sad. I did a first pass of collapse levels a few years back:
http://theslide.blogspot.com/2006/01/levels-of-collapse-warning-may-be.html
Being humans we are more interested in our own and our economic systems survival, I have bad news: lots die and the economic systems break.
Naahhh...the cockroaches will always survive. Heck, you can microwave those critters and they just laugh at you.
Not a chance. There are creatures that require temperatures close to the boiling point of water in order to survive. They prefer temperatures above boiling. Some of the latest thinking is that they are very closely related to the first life forms on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermophiles
Note also that they do not even depend on current energy from the sun as almost all lifeforms do. As long as those deepsea vents remain hot, they have what they need.
But the real lords of the planets are the microbes. If they could think through some form of emergent behaviour or something, they would probably regard us as mere brownian motion in the tea cup of evolution.
Apropos microbes: here's a link to an appropriately doomerish la times article called "The Rise of Slime".
I am assuming you have read my previous postings on Mexico. Mexico City [pop. approx. 20 million] is an area in extreme Overshoot, and the ongoing election standoff and Cantarell depletion is only adding to the population stress. Now add in the absolutely mind-boggling water shortages and energy requirements to keep this area minimally supplied--Mexico City is optimally primed for a titanic clash as they go postPeak. This link is two years old, but my guess is that things have only gotten worse since it was first published.
Excerpts:
-------------
Water Crisis as Mexico City Sinks Faster than Venice
Mexico City's underlying aquifer is now collapsing at a staggering rate beneath the streets. While Venice slips into the Adriatic at a fraction of an inch each year, Mexico City is lurching downwards by as much as a foot a year in some areas. Over the past century, it has dropped 30ft.
The city now has five pumping stations working around the clock to draw water vertically three-quarters of a mile from the neighbouring Cutzamala River basin and from the lower catchment area of the River Lerma. Paying about $50,000 (£28,000) a day in water rights alone, the system consumes the same amount of electricity as Puebla, a city of 1.3 million people to the south-east.
Below street level, the ongoing subsidence is wreaking havoc with the water distribution and drainage systems. The city's 8,300-mile network of water pipes routinely fracture, losing up to 40 per cent of potable water supplies, according to some estimates. The city's sewage used to drain away by gravity towards a far-off outflow in the Gulf of Mexico but now needs to be first pumped uphill before it can be drained.
----------------------
The Mayan and Aztecan collapses of yore will be nothing compared to when Mexico City has to be evacuated.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
We may be the SA of coal, but how the heck does one "ramp-up" quickly with it? Especially if you tie GHG preventatives to it. It seems to me that we are tied to the Middle East for quite some years.
Funny he did not mention kicking over the Syrian regime. That might prove a benefit - just the knocking over of it, not occupying it. Eliminating an ally of Iran might be of benefit.
Legitimate point. But Syria continues to be a way-station and suppler of arms flowing into Lebanon (and Iraq).
Instead of occupying, maybe disposing of the Assad regime and letting the Syrians sort things out would buy the West and Israel time, and it would be a blow against Iran. Remember, there are very very few Shias in Syria, it is run by Alawites and is largely Sunni.
All good points you make. But remember Syria is not currently a religious regime, but a Fascist state left-over, sort of like Franco's Spain into the 1960's.
But the Alawites dominate it and it would be comparable in part to having half the Cabinet in the USA run by members of the 7th Day Adventists. Some Sunni consider Alawites as beyond the pale.
This is not a fucking game of Risk, you are talking about regular people, families, civilians.
The civil war in Iraq didn't satisfy your bloodlust? Just give it time.
What's wrong with you?
RIGHT ON!!!
Racism is judging a person or group of people solely on the basis of race. Hating all the Arabs, or Muslims, or any ethnic or religious group, is fucking RACISM!!! And this is exactly the way the gov't=media=corporations wants you to think. This is the propaganda 24/7 in our media.
Oh, and by the way, Red Cross observers on the ground in Qana say there were no rockets or Hezbollah in Qana.
Thank you in advance.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745185.html
I have to admit that I do not put much faith on Israeli military propaganda "targeting video footage" that show a truck driving on some road as evidence of "rocket launchers" entering Qana. With all due respect, my friend, I am surprised you do.
If you want to make a difference in a positive way, why don't you go to www.fromisraeltolebanon.com and sign the petition to stop this blood bath? Thanks!
O.K., I will accept your solid argument that there was a major screw-up. In WWII it was called a FUBAR.
People died. It is wrong and sad.
If Hezbollah will work under the Lebanon Govt., AND as a part of it, and will not fire missiles into Israel UNLESS the entire Govt. agrees to it, well, I think you have an agreement (maybe with also taking/stopping resupply of THOUSANDS of missiles from Iran/Syria.)
On the radio last week I said if a third party fired missiles from Baja California into National City and Chula Vista, what do you think we would do? See President Wilson in 1916.
Contrary to what is presented in "Saving Private Ryan" the FUBAR acronym came later (our of Vietnam, if memory serves, but I could be off by a war or two).
For current usage, most popular is BOHICA: Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.
For those doing multiple tours in Iraq, the last formulation is especially appropriate.
Tell that to the people that are shaping today's "New World Order"....didn't Bush Sr. coin that phrase?
Ultimately, the only race you can't be racist against are the Chosenites. There have been coy murmurs here and there in the liberal press that you know, it's OK to not like black people, as long as you're not mean about it, and of course the noise about "illegal immigration" which we all know is about those brown people from down south, not illegals from England and Europe, and needless to say working-class white people have been a legitamate target for hate for years now, but don't ever ever ever say anything non-adoring about the Jews.
Now, there are Jews, and Jewish groups, who are against Zionism, but as much as possible is done in the US to deny they even exist. This is why Chomsky is so marginalized here. There's actually a much more lively discussion about the direction Israel should go within Israel than here in the US.
The US is basically owned and operated by the AIPAC/PNAC faction of Zionists, being about equal parts Jews and Christians who seem to believe, respectively, in the superiority of the Jewish race and in the necessity to do whatever the Jews want so Jesus Christ will come back*
*which if he actually did, boy would he be pissed!
fleam : don't ever ever ever say anything non-adoring about the Jews.
Jews are "more equal than others" with respect to antiracism.
I am surprised that you don't see the danger in this unsustainable position, it makes things worse.
There will ALWAYS be some racism around against EVERY and ANY group, it has to be contained to reasonable levels just like our other maladaptive traits.
There is no "final solution" to racism.
I have Jewish friends, want Israel to be, yet mostly despise the Zionist state Israel is now.
Sadly I think Israel has crossed too many lines now and have probably united too may arab folks agaisnt them. My guess is that Israel must relocate to USA asap.
Why? Because no one has had their family massecred by Koreans, Irish, Japanese (at least not for a long time) etc. There is NO pattern of the Japanese, Irish, etc declaring themselves above the law, and massecring people around them. No one lives in Neighborhood X, where Neighborhood X has been in existance for 1000's of years, and have a bunch of this or that group move in next door, then start shooting them for sport like squirrels, cut off their water, chop down ancestral olive and almond trees, and level houses.
If speaking the truth makes me a Nazi, maybe we need to look at who thinks speaking the truth is so dangerous, or .... hey maybe those Nazis were onto something. Seig, heil!